


moving on

by laireshi



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Avengers #29 spoilers, M/M, Not A Fix-It, hickmanvengers, implied suicide, more warnings in notes at the end, post NA#3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1647950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wishes he could forget again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	moving on

**Author's Note:**

> As said in tags: spoilers for Avengers #29. Also, more warnings at the end of fic.
> 
> I am so not over this issue.
> 
> (I posted it first on [my tumblr](http://laireshi.tumblr.com/post/85934325982/original-sin-not-a-fix-it))

“You used me,” Steve says, and he's proud of how his voice doesn't shake.

“Yes . . . I suppose I did. And I'd do it again.”

The worst thing is, Steve believes him.

***

He wakes up at night, hoping that the world is right again, that everything that happened was just a dream, and it's never true.

The memory of betrayal is fresh, too fresh, always, and it hurts like an open wound.

The world is ending, and Steve can't focus on anything, anything but Tony's voice –

_I'll find some way to make this right_ –

Always the liar.

Steve wishes he could forget again.

***

“You can't forgive me,” Tony says one day. “And I don't ask for it. But you have to work with me.”

Steve walks out.

***

He works with him, because of course he does. The world is more important than him, and if he feels like he can't breathe, like everything is just white hot pain when he's in one room with Tony, well.

They have to save the world.

“Why,” he asks, one day, when they're monitoring two alternative worlds, alone. It's a bad idea. He can't stop himself.

Tony glances at him. He looks terrible, rough; he looks like Steve feels, and Steve thinks that before he would have worried. He would ask. He tells himself he doesn't care now.

Tony looks at the other world, 3490, and wasn't it a punch to the gut when they saw it, and then back at Steve.

“For you,” he says.

Steve laughs, with disbelief, and Tony seems so serious, and he can't – he can't – he hauls off and punches him, because their discussions always run like this, lately.

Tony picks himself up and stays still, as if expecting another hit, and Steve wishes he could do it, he wishes he could hit him and not pull his punches, he wishes he could make him understand what he did to Steve – it's as if they're in Tony's lab, again, but they haven't really moved past it, have they?

The worst thing is, Steve believed him.

***

They save the world, because this is what they do.

“So is Tony coming back?” Clint asks.

“No,” Tony answers, before Steve can, and Steve thinks he hates him for that, too.

***

Time doesn't heal that wound.

He can talk to Reed. He can work with T'Challa. He can trust Stephen.

He can't even _look_ at Tony without remembering it all again, and again, and again, and he feels like he's drowning, but he can't catch air.

***

“IRON MAN RELAPSED,” the headline reads, and there's a photo of Tony in a destroyed suit, a bottle of whisky in one hand, and Steve remembers carrying drunk Tony out of fire, and can't remember why he cared.

(He remembers very well, that's the problem; they made him forget, and now he can't stop remembering).

***

“It's as if he's trying to kill himself,” Jan says, but they all fall quiet when Steve enters the room.

He knows who they're talking about. He knows he should find him, tell him to stop. Tell him to come back. That he's forgiven.

But Tony doesn't expect it, does he, because he got one thing right, and it's this: Steve can't forgive him.

He thinks he maybe wants to, but he doesn't know how.

***

It's raining.

He thinks he shouldn't be there, in between people mourning Tony, when he can't even summon any feelings.

_You used me_ , he said, and it's still on top of his thoughts.

Everything was a lie, or maybe not, he'll never know. He would never ask, and now Tony will never say.

Steve has never wanted to see him again, and now he won't, and he hates himself for crying, and it doesn't change anything. He's not mourning his friend now. He's lost him long time ago, in Necropolis.

He thought he maybe could move on, when Tony's buried, but now he knows he can't.

Steve still can't forgive him what he did. And now he can't forgive him dying, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Off screen character death, Tony Stark.


End file.
